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Meet our team

CLAYTON FAIRBAIRN

Engineering Director

With nearly 20 years’ experience, Clayton heads up the engineering team. He is particularly interested in coming up with cunning and innovative designs to solve civil engineering and stormwater problems. A huge amount of Clayton’s expertise is in the land development field, which means he’s used to designing services for subdivisions and commercial developments, and squeezing all the required infrastructure into the small spaces left behind after all the buildings and car parks have covered a site.

JOHN FERGUSON

Planning Director

John’s had 15 years’ experience in planning, first as a Council planner in the Auckland region, then as a consultant in Christchurch. John started Baseline Group (formerly Baseline Planning) in 2010, when the GFC was in full swing. Despite a global downturn and a few significant earthquakes, things went alright, so John now looks after the planning team, as well as the engineers when Clayton is galavanting about the countryside looking at holes in the ground.

ANNA MACKENZIE

Marlborough Director

Anna has recently become the director of our Marlborough office, based in Blenheim. Anna has been involved in a huge variety of planning and land development, and brings significant experience to the team. She has written and presented papers to the NZ Planning Institute and likes to spend her spare time coming up with newspaper articles that are published on a regular basis in the Marlborough region.

HAYLEY STIELLER

PA to the Directors

After it became apparent that neither Clayton nor John were cutting the mustard at administrative work, it was up to Hayley to crack the whip and get the directors back into line.

Hayley’s experience in administration has helped Baseline Group enormously and she ensures that everything gets done to keep the office running smoothly.

MIKE VINCENT

Senior Planner

Mike started as policy planner at Thames Coromandel District Council, but shortly moved on to Heritage New Zealand, where he stayed for 10 years before joining Baseline Group. He’s a full member of the NZ Planning Institute, and also a member of ICOMOS (International Council for Monuments and Sites).

He’s worked in Canterbury, West Coast, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne and Waikato, and with his heritage background, Mike brings a completely different perspective to the planning team.

SEAN MONAGHAN

Civil Engineer

Sean has been working in the civil engineering industry since 2010. Originally starting out in the construction sector working on major highway developments in the North Island, Sean made the shift to Christchurch following the February 2011 earthquake and has been working as a consulting engineer since. Sean has been heavily involved with design and project management of a number of developments in Canterbury since 2011 including residential, commercial and industrial developments.

ELAINE LI

Landscape Architect & Urban Designer

Elaine started with Baseline Group in 2016 after completing a degree in fine arts and another degree in Landscape Architecture.

She brings incredible design skills to the team; people are now using words like “pretty” and “eye-catching” when they see our plans. Admittedly, some of those people are the engineers who only ever deal in black and white.

JALESH DEVKOTA

Civil Engineer

Jalesh started working in Civil Engineering field since 2007. After working for a year and half in Nepal, he went to Italy to finish his Masters in Civil Engineering, where he got some volunteering experience with earthquake stricken L’ Aquila. He has also served the Government of Nepal in various aspects of Civil Engineering. Jalesh came to New Zealand for his PhD studies and joined Baseline Group to get hands on local experience in the industry. He is involved in planning, designing, site supervising, resource consenting and preparing engineering reports for our developments.

SALLY ELFORD

Planner

Sally has been working as a consultant planner since 2006. She has experience in both rural and urban environments; from Central Otago to Vancouver, Canada. A policy planner at heart, Sally believes in practical solutions resulting in successful projects. Sally’s planning experience ranges from Official Community Plan and climate change adaptation policy development to resource consents for a variety of land development projects.

JULY ZHOU

Civil Engineering Draftsman

July joined Baseline Group to get some work experience after getting a New Zealand Diploma in Engineering (Civil). He usually is responsible for preparing as-built drawings for roading, bridges, pump stations, water supply, stormwater and waste water projects; but also prepares construction drawings to assist with construction works.

NINA KAY

Planner

Nina is a planner from South Africa and joined the Marlborough team in August 2017. She started working for a consultancy in South Africa in 2013, developing master plans and spatial development frameworks for countries in Africa. She then merged into community- engagement planning following the principles of biomimicry. If you pop into the office in Blenheim, you’ll find her preparing resource consent applications.

Emma Song

Civil Engineering Draftsman

Emma had around 4 years’ experience in Civil 3D drafting and design as a civil designer, and her main focus were on roading design, stormwater design and drawing presentations. Now her responsibility are preparing drawings for geotech, roading, bridges, drainage and structure, also prepares construction drawings to assist with construction works.

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About Us

Baseline Group – providing quality land development consultancy services. Whether you are looking to do a simple subdivision, or creating a small development, or even developing a large commercial or residential subdivision, we can help.